Paradise Hotel, August 25: Girl Power

It’s moving day in Paradise, and the room assignments are: Amy and Scott, Desiree and Tom, Holly and Keith, Tara and Dave, and Charla and Alex. Charla is most displeased with having to room with Alex because, as Dave points out, they hate each other. It’s all over her face as she drags her suitcase into the Butterfly Room. Alex, nice guy that he is, gives her a peace offering: press-on nails, so she doesn’t have to hole up in her room fixing her nails and can come out and drink, which seems to be Alex’s idea of paradise. Showing her typical good response to gifts, Charla immediately informs him that she’s not going to wear them and stashes them away. Charla orders a drink.

Dave comes in to find out how upset Charla is at Tara and him for putting her together with Alex. Charla says they did the right thing, and then asks how she’s expected to sleep in the same room as him, and Dave offers to let her sleep in the small bed in his and Tara’s room; Charla refuses. Charla asks Dave to get Tara to come console her. Dave tells Alex that the reason he put them together is that he didn’t want them together for the third week in a row; Keith thinks it’s because he and Charla are getting too close.

Tara joins Charla in the Monkey Room and tells her she only has to put up with Alex for one week, and anyway, it’s the best room there. Charla says that she’d rather be in a worse room with someone she liked. Tara said that she liked Alex, and a flashback is shown of Tara licking whipped cream off Alex’s neck. Keith brings in Charla’s champagne.

Later that morning, Scott tells Amy that even though she wants to be gone, he really needs her to be there for her energy and spunk, and he feels he knows her, whereas he didn’t know the newer people as well. As everyone is eating lunch, Alex says that he wants a friend from the past voted on, and everyone agrees that would be cool, especially if it was Kavita (jokingly).

Everyone gathers for roommate selection night… but is it? Host Amanda points out, for those of us who haven’t noticed, that there’s always a surprise in Paradise, and this time, it’s that there will be no new guests in Paradise, which is greeted by cheers from the guests. Amanda congratulates them for having made it this far in the game, and reminds them that the still-to-be-revealed ultimate prize is waiting to be won. But, one of the guys will still have to check out – and this time, all five ladies will choose which one will be evicted. It’s time to suck up to the ladies!

Later that night, Keith tells Dave and Charla that he wants Scott gone. Dave says it should definitely be Scott or Alex, to which Keith immediately says it should be Scott – definitely Scott. Everyone else doesn’t know who to trust, and it’s time to start really playing the game and take out the one the others will rally around. It’s going to be bad.

Tara suggests that one of the boys should jump in the pool naked; Tom immediately complies, to whistles and cheers. Keith wisely refuses. Still later that evening, the guests are in the pool, and Tara invites Alex to play “Pass the Ice Cube.” This game looks like a lot of fun… well, except to Charla, who’s lying dispiritedly on the lounge chair. Holly and Desiree join them in the pool. The game moves poolside as Tara and Holly and Alex continue playing the game.

Charla can’t bear to watch and tells Tom that it’s just like high school, which she loathed and has never wished to go back to. And here she is, the same deal all over again. Alex, being smothered in kisses by Tara and Holly, notes happily that he won’t be getting voted off this week! Charla watches them hang all over Alex and says she’d never do something like that; flashbacks to her drunkenly hitting on Scott and kissing Zack. As Alex, Tara, and Holly leave to go to the empty Black Room, he jokingly asks if she’s mad; Charla plays along and says she knows who he’s coming back to anyway. The three stagger off. Charla says that Holly sure gets crazy when she drinks, and so does Tara, but at least she likes Tara better because she’s not as loud. As Alex and friends settle in to the empty room, Charla’s glad she’ll have the Butterfly Room to herself.

Scott joins the fun and observes so he can learn the intricate rules of the ice cube game and the four swap a cube around. Soon, Scott and Holly leave Tara and Alex alone, and Scott joins Charla and Tom at the pool. Scott promptly tells them that Tara is doing way worse than when she played with whipped cream earlier. “Better her than me,” says Charla. She’s glad she’s never done anything stupid when drunk (they’re filming you, remember?) and flashbacks immediately show her asking Keith to get in the bathtub together with their swimsuits on, and him shooting her down because she’s too drunk. Tom walks Charla back to her room.

The next morning at breakfast, the girls ask Tara what went on with Alex the night before. She fesses us to some kissing but says she didn’t do anything her mother didn’t say she could. Meanwhile, the guys grill Alex about his “excursion” to the Black Room with Tara, and Alex says that because he’s never been out on his own excursion, he had to make one for himself. Desiree gets an envelope that instructs the women to write questions for the men to answer in a ladies’ edition of Pandora’s Box. Only the women would be asking the questions that night.